Little Rock 1957: National

The events surrounding the 1957 desegregation of Central High School made an impact at a number of levels. At a national level, President Eisenhower’s response to the Brown decision has been viewed as one of the major blights on his otherwise popular presidency. Eisenhower was reluctant to voice support for Brown in public and he was disparaging of the Supreme Court’s decision in private. It was with great hesitancy that he sent federal troops into Little Rock, and only then when Gov. Orval Faubus issued such a direct challenge to his executive authority that it was impossible to ignore. More progressive figures in Eisenhower’s administration included Arkansas native Arthur B. Caldwell, who was the assistant to the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.